


Dead Men Tell No Tales (And They Sure As Hell Can't Sing)

by fishoutofcamelot



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bromance, Catfishing, Comedy, Gen, Hurt Merlin (Merlin), Hurt/Comfort, In Which Merlin Tries His Best, Mentions of homophobia, Murder, Musicians, probably eventual merthur?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:33:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23042554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishoutofcamelot/pseuds/fishoutofcamelot
Summary: Merlin's life is perfect. He has a nice job, he lives with his two childhood friends in a decent apartment, and he's going on his first date in months.Of course, it's only a matter of time before it all goes up in flames.Literally. As in, Merlin dies in a fire. And turns into a ghost. And helps his own killer get away with murder so he can pretend he's still alive.
Relationships: Elyan & Merlin (Merlin), Gwaine & Merlin (Merlin), Gwen & Merlin (Merlin), Merlin & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Merlin & Mithian (Merlin), Merlin & Morgana (Merlin)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 87





	1. Guess I'll Die

The smell of rotting, burning flesh sickens him. It doesn't help that the flesh is his own.

Well, it _was_ his own. Now that he's dead, it's hard to think of it as being a part of him. Yes, he had once inhabited that sack of meat now sizzling before him, but it's not him. Not anymore. 

Was it? Who is he, now that he's dead and gone? Because there's no doubt in his mind he's dead, that much he knows for certain. 

Come to think of it, there are plenty of other things he knows. He knows his name is Merlin Emrys. He knows that just last week, he got a job after four months of desperate searching.

He knows he has - had - an internet friend who called himself Will Waterson, and they grew close, and started a virtual dating fling. He knows he had grown to love him. He knows he was a naive idiot who didn't bother asking for a photo of what he looked like, didn't bother asking if he was truly real. Surely he was too kind to be fake, too funny to be a scam.

He knows that 'Will Waterson' is a scam. He knows Will isn’t a 26-year-old college dropout but rather a forty-something sadist with black hair and a slimy grin, who's got all the experience and grit of a man who's done this before.

He knows they were meant to meet at the park. He knows he was wrapped up from behind and smuggled into a trunk, and taken back to Will Waterson's house, where that man did all manner of horrible, horrible things...

He knows he's dead. He knows he died in a nice white button-up and his best pair of slacks, which have now been burnt into dust. He knows he died alone and in pain. He knows his charred remains have been buried in a nearby forest. 

He knows he’s a ghost. Has been, for about four hours now. Just floating there, hovering above his unmarked grave and dappered down in the clothes he wore when he died, sobbing and screaming and raging against the folds of the universe about the injustice of his timely death. He knows it’s nearly morning by the time he finally calms down. 

What he doesn't know is where the hell he goes from here. 

He can’t go to work, can he? He can’t talk with friends, or pay rent, or go on dates (not that he’ll want to, after the fatal end to his last one), or any of that stuff. His life is over. Literally.

Merlin dries his eyes, which is a strange thing in and of itself. How does he have eyes, or tears, or any of that stuff, if he’s not even tangible? He’s tried touching trees and rocks, but he keeps phasing through it all. How is his hand not phasing through his face, then? 

His hands are see-through. Like vaguely shaped clumps of mist, molded into the visage of human fingers. His skin is pale and transparent, and if not for the way his sleeves roll up at the elbow then he wouldn’t be able to see any difference between skin and shirt. Well, if you could call it skin. You probably need to be alive to have skin.

If he’s going off the typical movie-ghost motivation, then Merlin’s probably supposed to avenge his own death. Unfinished business and all that. But he’s not feeling particularly vengeful at the moment - and even if he was, he’d have no clue where to start. Outside of online correspondence with ‘Will Waterson’, he doesn’t know the first thing about his killer’s true identity. 

Is that his unfinished business? To track down his killer and help the authorities enact justice upon him? Perhaps he’ll gain help from a spunky young teen who’s incidentally the only person who can see the supernatural, who agrees to help Merlin pass on. That’s a common movie plot.

Merlin shudders at the thought of passing on. He doesn’t _want_ to ‘rest in peace’. He wants to go to work, and spend time with his friends, and buy his mom another novelty mug every Mother’s Day, and he wants to host Christmas at his apartment this year. If he passes on, he won’t be able to see his friends. He’ll be alone.

Maybe it’s for the best that his murder remain a cold case, lest his unfinished business be completed and force him to pass on. Then maybe he’ll end up on one of those crime shows, and he can watch ‘professionals’ theorize about his death while laughing at how many details they get wrong.

He could haunt the forest. Terrorize anyone who comes near with spooky sounds and sudden shivers down their spines, and the odd sense of being watched. But no, he can’t stomach the idea of being one of those malicious types.

Maybe he’ll be a Friendly Ghost, like Casper. Admittedly, Merlin’s only ever seen that weird 3D animated series they made about it, the one where Casper goes to school or something. His little cousin Mordred was a big fan of it. 

Oh, Mordred. Mordred will miss him, won’t he? His cousin’s a creepy bastard, like the little boy from _The Shining_ , but he’s well-meaning enough. 

Wait. What if Mordred is the ‘designated seer’ who is able to commune the dead? He’d be like - like that boy from _The Sixth Sense_ , or something. He’s certainly creepy enough.

Well no, he probably _isn’t_ the ‘designated seer’ then. Mordred’s not creepy in the ‘I see dead people’ way, but rather the ‘Tony isn’t here right now’ way. 

Good grief, there are a lot of creepy little boys in Hollywood. He could probably find something about that on TV Tropes.

Would he even be able to _access_ TV Tropes? You kinda need corporeal hands to go online. Unless you account for all those ghost-possesses-the-internet movies. Like _Unfriended_ , or that one episode of _Supernatural._ But he isn’t haunting the internet, he’s haunting a forest.

He’s haunting a forest.

Crap.

He can’t very well spend the rest of his life in a forest! There’s nothing to do here! Who even goes hiking in these parts?

As fast as his disembodied spirit will travel, Merlin flies ( _flies_ , can you believe it) away from his burial site and towards the edge of the forest. Please please _please_ be able to leave the forest…

The treeline ends. He braces for impact.

And the impact never comes.

Is he - is he really - yes! He’s out of the forest! 

He’s currently hovering a few feet over the cold, crumbly asphalt of an old forest-side road. It’s barely the crack of dawn, so there aren’t any cars out yet. 52nd Street. He’s driven down this very road before. He drives this way every time he heads out to visit his mom. And now he’s buried around here.

It’s odd, to think that such an innocuous place could become something so horrible. How many people will drive by this exact road, unaware of the blackened, charcoaled body buried barely twenty feet away? How many times has _he_ driven past this road, unaware of the various dead bodies buried nearby? 

Merlin resolutely decides not to think about it.

* * *

Ealdor is the quiet yet bustling suburb of Camelot City, best known for its quaint Town Square Park and lowkey hipster gentrification vibe. Merlin, who was born and raised on these streets (no really, his mother went into labour right on the corner of 4th and Manning), he knows this place - and its people - like the back of his hand.

Well, like the back of his _former_ , more _corporeal_ hand, anyway. The one he’s got now is just a translucent shadow of what it once was. But at least his ghostly form doesn’t show the wounds he sustained in death, or else this new hand would also be a mangled, broken, bloody mess. Small mercies.

Winged Dragon Apartments lies in a part of town that _looks_ seedy, but is probably the most laid-back neighbourhood in all of Ealdor. Unless you account for the apartment complex’s manager, Mr. Kilgharrah, who is the antithesis to ‘laid-back’. Probably has something to do with how he spent twenty years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. That sort of experience can harden your soul, or so Merlin’s heard.

Up on the third floor of Building B is a small, innocuous apartment in which three people live - well, where three people _used_ to live. Now it’s just two. Gwen and Elyan Smith. 

Merlin used to live here, when he was alive. He and Elyan bunked in one room while Gwen took the other. Elyan slept on the bottom bunk and Merlin on the top, much to Elyan’s chagrin. Due to an injury that kept him in the house most of the day, Elyan had taken on most of the chores to fill his otherwise empty hours - not that Merlin and Gwen were complaining.

The living room is bedazzled in fairy lights, a decision Elyan had severely objected at first but quickly grew to love (not that he’d admit it). The kitchen is a simple linoleum affair, complete with a rusty oven and a fridge that has a habit of leaking - or peeing, as Merlin calls it. The light in the shower flickers, and the door to the balcony once got so jammed that Gwen was stuck out in the cold for about three hours.

With a sad, wet sigh, Merlin fades through the front door of B306. He’s greeted with a sight so familiar it aches.

Gwen is sitting in her usual spot, reading glasses perched so edgily on her nose it looks ready to slip off at the slightest provocation, and a thicket of papers sprawled across her end of the knickered wooden table. She takes an indelicate sip from her coffee mug - the “World’s Best Dad” mug Merlin had gotten her as a joke back in high school - and runs a hand through her frazzled bedhead.

“You’ll strain your eyes staring at that for too long,” Elyan warns. He hobbles into his seat, and for a moment his eyes glance in Merlin’s direction.

He tenses. Can Elyan - can Elyan _see_ him? Well, there are worse people to have as his ‘designated seer’. 

But then the moment passes, and Elyan’s gaze rolls over to his twin sister. Merlin tries not to be disheartened by it. He’s already wandered down the busy morning streets of Ealdor, had already greeted as many people as he could in the hopes that someone would respond, but came up empty. No one can see or hear him. He was a fool to think his friends would be any different.

Elyan nudges Gwen in the shoulder and calls her name, which jolts her into alertness.

“What?”

“Stare any harder at that paper and you’ll burn a hole in it,” teases Elyan. He takes a bite out of his scrambled eggs with a light grin. Typical Elyan. “Why not take a break? The deadline isn’t for another week.”

Her response comes in the form of a sigh. 

It’s odd, being so close to two of his best friends - people he considers family - and remain invisible to them. Gwen can see it when he’s wearing a new pair of socks, but she can’t see it when he’s hovering right over her toast. 

“Good grief, Gwen!” Merlin exclaims, upon noticing the heavy bags under her eyes. “Did you sleep at all last night?”

“You didn’t go to bed,” Elyan says, as though he and Merlin are on the same wavelength. Considering how they pretty much grew up together, they most likely are. It’s almost touching how not even death can change that.

Gwen shakes her head. “I have to get this done. I realized there’s a plot-hole because in chapter seven I mention how Picana is staying in Aerudae with her mother while she copes with Tobias’s betrayal, but then in chapter twenty she’s mentioned fighting in the Battle at Orilion despite having never forgiven him and now I have to rewrite -”

For a moment, Merlin forgets she can’t hear him. “ _Or_ , you could just have her appear in the pre-battle scene ready to fight with everyone else. Maybe she’s decided she wants to reconcile with Tobias and they have a nice little moment to-”

“Just omit her from the Battle then,” Elyan says.

“That could work,” Gwen and Merlin say in unison. He turns to her to say ‘jinx, you owe me a soda’ but she can’t hear him. His ghostly heart cramps at the realization. He’s gonna have to get used to this.

“Thanks, Elyan,” Gwen says. She kisses her brother on the cheek, then sets her manuscript down to scribble something into the margin of page 234. Her handwriting is as perfectly illegible as it’s always been.

A few moments of silence pass between the three of them. Elyan eats his eggs, Gwen nibbles occasionally on her toast, and Merlin floats in the living room, watching them with somber nostalgia. 

He’ll never get to be a part of this morning ritual anymore. He won’t get to wake up late and get scolded by Gwen as he dashes out the door with a granola bar tucked under his arm and a promise to eat something more substantial at lunch break. He won’t get to watch Elyan insist he doesn’t need to use his crutches just to go to the bathroom. He won’t get to tease the neighbour Percival Grail for his inability to keep a tomato plant alive. 

Merlin does his best not to think about all the good memories he’ll never get to create. He thinks about it anyway.

Gwen’s voice breaks the easy silence. “Merlin didn’t come home last night.” Merlin freezes at the mention of his name.

“Maybe his date went well,” Elyan hums, scrolling absent-mindedly through his Instagram.

“Oh yeah, _really_ well,” Merlin says with a snort.

When her nose scrunches up like that, it means Gwen isn’t convinced. And the squint of her eyes indicates concern. So she doesn’t know he’s dead yet, but Worst-Case-Scenario Gwen is likely entertaining the notion as they speak. 

Oh god he’s dead. He’s known it for hours now - kind of hard to deny it at this point - but only just now has the full gravity of it smacked him from a new, unprecedented angle.

How will his friends react? Gwen and Elyan have already lost both their parents. Gaius never remarried or started a family after the death of his wife Alice, but he’s always said that Merlin is like the son he never had. And Mithian needs him at work, because they’re understaffed until they can find someone to replace Elena. And Merlin seems to be the only person to earn the affections of Kilgharrah’s unruly cat Aithusa. And if he suffers the death of another loved one, Gwaine will probably go back to drinking - never mind that he’s been sober for six months now.

Not to go overstating his worth, but he’s pretty sure his friends will experience some modicum of devastation to learn he’s dead. At least, he hopes so.

What kind of person does it make him to _hope_ his friends are devastated? If they move on and forget all about him, shouldn’t he be happy to know he hasn’t caused them any pain? To know that they’ll continue living bright, fulfilling lives?

“What is it, Gwen? You’ve got that look on your face again.”

“It just...isn’t like him, I suppose.”

“Maybe the date went really well and he stayed over at that Will guy’s house. They might’ve hooked up.”

This is awkward for three reasons: 1) he’s technically eavesdropping; 2) the idea of hooking up with the greasy git who killed him is revolting; and 3) Gwen and Elyan are speculating about his sex life behind his back.

“Can we _not_ talk about this?” His cry of indignation goes unheard.

“He would’ve texted me to let me know where he’s going,” Gwen argues. “And he’s not responded to any of my calls or texts.”

And that much is true. Gwen sometimes gets paranoid when she doesn’t know where people are, and it’s an unspoken thing among all her friends to always let her know when a schedule has to get rearranged for some reason. If Will Waterson was a real person he’d decided to hook up with, Merlin _would_ have let Gwen know not to expect him home that night.

Great. Just great. He went and got his idiot self killed, and now he’s upset Gwen. Way to go, Merlin.

A troubled look flashes on Elyan’s face. They both know how important it is to Gwen to know where people are, and neither of them would leave her in the dark without good reason. It’s almost comforting that Elyan knows him well enough to be suspicious. 

“He...must’ve forgotten,” Elyan says, though he thoroughly sounds like he doesn’t believe it.

To be honest, Merlin isn’t sure whether or not he wants them to know about his murder. On the one hand, knowing would give them closure. On the other hand, knowing would also traumatize them with the knowledge of just how Merlin died.

They’d find his charred, blackened remains, buried haphazardly in the forest, with his only recognizable feature being the silver charm bracelet on his left wrist. Elyan will freeze up, unable to support Gwen’s weight as she collapses to her knees and points shakily at the lump of charcoal she’s been asked to identify. “It can’t be,” she’ll sob. “It’s not...oh god...oh Merlin…”

He can’t do that to them. He can’t hurt them like that.

But it’s not like he has any other choice, does he?

“Merlin will be back by dinner, I’m sure of it,” Elyan says. “And when he gets home, we can chew him out on where he’s been. He could do with a good scolding.”

Gwen chuckles at this, and Merlin does too, but both of their laughs are weighed down by different forms of grief: for Gwen, it’s fear of the unknown; for Merlin, it’s fear of the known.

He won’t be coming home for dinner. 

No. No, he can’t accept that. He can’t just roll over and let his entire life crumble away. He can’t let that creepy catfishing bastard win. 

But how? He’s dead. And dead people don’t exactly come back to life, do they?

It doesn’t matter. He’ll find a way. Whatever it takes for him to finally have his life back, to be there for his friends, to give them the love and support they deserve.

A gasp. “M-Merlin!” 

Gwen is at her feet, staring in his direction with shock etched into her features.

Can she...can she _see_ him? But how is that possible? He’s been standing here for ten minutes, and she hadn’t noticed him before. Neither of them had. 

“Gwen?”

She cuts him off by running towards him and pulling him into a hug. Her arms wrap around him, and he - he doesn’t _feel_ it, not really. He knows there’s some kind of pressure enveloping his body, but it’s far more cold and muted than an embrace has any right to be.

But still, it’s an embrace nonetheless. And after the last ten hours, he’s in desperate need of one.

Wait. How is she touching him? He’s a ghost, he’s intangible! 

He pushes her away to end the hug, but she’s still rambling on about how worried she was when he didn’t come home last night and _where were you_ , and all other number of questions Merlin can’t bear to answer.

But he only vaguely half-listens. Instead, he stares down at his hands. 

They’re not translucent anymore. Aside from a slight sheen of paleness that wasn’t there before, he seems perfectly human. 

And yet, his feet still hover about an inch off the ground. He hurries to plant them down before anyone notices. Merlin has always been on the tall side, so luckily no one does.

Could it be? He’s human again? It can’t be. He was floating just now, and humans can’t float. He also still feels like an empty husk made of smoke - smoke that is now struggling to condense itself into a solid form. 

Wait. Isn’t it possible for some ghosts to move objects? And for other ghosts to manifest as apparitions? What if he’s somehow employing both of those techniques in making himself appear...human?

As Gwen steps back from him, he feels his veneer of tangibility flicker. He holds onto it, a bit like when you have to pee but can’t find a bathroom. 

Horrible analogy, but in his defense he died like seven hours ago. He has every right to be a bit frizzy in the brain.

“I didn’t even hear you come in,” Gwen remarks in confusion. “I don’t think I saw the door open.”

“I-I guess I’m just sneaky like that,” he teases, straining to project his spectral voice so she can hear it. A headache racks his senses, but he persists.

Elyan levels him with an appraising look as Gwen returns to her seat. “Why didn’t you tell anyone what was going on? Gwen and I were worried about you.”

Oh _crap_. He hasn’t exactly thought this through. But how could he? It’s not every day you die, become a ghost, then somehow manage to manifest as corporeal-passing. If he’s lucky he’ll wake up and learn this was all just a horrible dream. 

“I - I - um...my _date_...tossed my phone...into the river. That’s what happened. And I...spent all night trying to find it! Yeah, and - and at sunrise I figured it was a lost cause so I just decided to...head home. And that’s why I couldn’t tell you what was happening. Because my phone’s gone. Probably broken. Uh. Sorry?” 

It was a dumb story, but it would have to do. 

A matching pair of cringes. “Will sure sounds like a _fantastic_ individual,” Elyan drawls. Any previous heat over Merlin’s lack of communication seems to have faded in favour of sympathy.

A lecherous smile. Small, beady eyes crinkled into a most hideous expression. A loud, cruel laugh. Flames.

“Let’s just say he wasn’t what I thought he was.”

“What’s his address? I think I’d like to give him a piece of my mind. No one messes with my brother and gets away with it.”

Brother. That’s what Elyan and Merlin were. Brothers. Not by blood or adoption or familial ties, but through camaraderie and experience. 

Two high school freshmen sitting in a janitor closet; one on the run from a homophobic bully, the other on the run from a racist one. The locking of pinkies in lieu of a promise, the formation of a pact: outcasts stick together. 

Then one of those freshmen grew up and died. How’s that for being an outcast.

“It’s fine,” Merlin assures. “I think it’s best if we just leave... _Will_...alone.”

Gwen’s smile warms up into one of comfort, and the worry ebbs away from it. “I guess that just means we’ll have to buy you a new phone then. Now come, have some breakfast. I’m sure you could do with a good meal after the horrible night you’ve just had.”

That’s just her way. Worry incessantly, then _mother_ incessantly, then worry some more. 

Within minutes, Merlin finds himself pouring a bowl of cereal in the kitchen, with Gwen animatedly nattering away at the table now that she doesn’t have fear to sober her morning-person disposition.

Her beaming relief only cements it further into his mind that he can’t, under any circumstance, allow her to find out about his death. He can’t hurt her. He can’t let her down.

Somehow, he’s able to manifest not just as an apparition, but as a _tangible_ one. How such a thing is possible, he’s not sure. 

His hand turns intangible, and the cereal box slips from his fingers. With a clatter and a rush, cereal spills out all over the counter and floor. A few cereal bits roll straight through his intangible - and now slightly translucent - feet. He lets out a curse.

Is - is this it? Is that all the tangibility he’ll get? He wanted to comfort Gwen, and now that he’s fulfilled his wish he goes back to full ghost? 

“Merlin,” Gwen calls out. “Everything alright in there?”

“I’m fine, everything’s fine!” he squeaks. “Just - just spilled the cereal. Don’t come in here, it’s everywhere. But it’s fine.”

Or rather, don’t come in here or you’ll see your roommate struggling not to fade out of existence. 

He strains and tenses every wispy tendril of his soul, letting out a pained groan as his apparition clenches back together. His figure trembles a bit, teeters on the precipice of intangibility, and then smooths over. 

If he stares hard enough at his skin, he can spot the slightest tinge of transparency lining the edges of his skin. Like a drawing that hasn’t been fully coloured in. But it’s only a slight thing, and if he’s careful enough then his ghostly status will go unnoticed. Hopefully no one will bother to scrutinize him too closely.

With a sharp and instinctive mimicry of breath (it’s hard to breathe if you don’t have lungs), Merlin stiffly walks over to the broom and dustpan to sweep up the errant cereal. It fumbles in his shaky, barely tangible grasp, and Elyan teases him for being so clumsy this morning, but after about five minutes he manages to get the mess cleared up. 

Just as he dares to pour another bowl, a thought occurs to him: how the _hell_ is he going to eat? He’s _dead_ . He doesn’t have a _stomach_. 

Can ghosts eat? Is there food for ghosts? Does he have to eat it to survive? Some of those paranormal investigation shows mention how some spirits feed on fear or something. Will he have to haunt his own friends in order to keep alive - well, the ghost equivalent of alive? 

There really should be some kind of orientation for the newly dead. He has no clue how he’s supposed to navigate all this.

Gwen puts her dishes in the sink. “I think I’d better get ready for work. As do _you_ , Merlin. Don’t you have to be at work in twenty minutes?”

Oh crap. _Work_. How the hell is he supposed to go to work when he’s yet to get the hang of holding something without literally phasing right through it? 

Is this what it’s like to be Danny Phantom? Merlin never watched much of that show, never really bothered, but the main character always seemed so overwhelmed by all his ghost powers. Does this mean Merlin’s gonna develop ectoplasm lasers and start catching malevolent spirits in a modified thermos? God he hopes not. This whole ‘dying’ thing is difficult already. He doesn’t need to throw undead vigilantism into the mix.

“I think I’m gonna stay home today,” he says, and fakes a cough. “I feel like I’m coming down with something.”

Lifting up to her tip-toes, Gwen presses a hand to his forehead. It takes every ounce of energy and strength he has to make his head solid. 

She frowns. “You’re cold. Very, _very_ cold. You’re right, I think you should stay home today. I’m sure Mithian will understand. Elyan, if you could stay home and -”

“But Leon and I are going to that car show today,” he definitely-doesn’t-whine-like-a-child. 

“ _Elyan_.”

“No!” Merlin blurts. “I mean - well, I don’t feel _super_ sick, just kinda woozy. I think a nice shower and some bedrest, and I’ll be good as new. I don’t need Elyan to look after me, I’m not seven.”

Elyan looks relieved. Gwen looks concerned.

“Really. I’ll be fine. I just need some sleep. I appreciate you’re just looking out for me, but you don’t need to worry. It’s just a cold.”

After a moment of hesitation, she gives in. “Alright. But I’m bringing you some soup on the way home.” Soup he probably won’t be able to eat. “And since you don’t have your phone, go down to Mr. Kilgharrah if you need anything.”

He snorts and rolls his eyes, hoping the gesture doesn’t belie the undercurrent of anxiety thrumming just beneath his ghostly skin. “Yes, _mother_.”

Elyan lets out a good-natured laugh, and they all part ways to start their morning routines. Merlin settles into a nice, warm shower, whose nice warmth has been replaced with the numb coldness that’s veiled over his senses. Gwen gets pinned up to go to work in her data analyst day job, and Elyan waits by the door for Leon to arrive so they can carpool together.

In the steamy confines of the bathroom, Merlin finds himself able to truly contemplate everything that’s happened thus far. The date with ‘Will Waterson’, who apparently was just the facade for some murderous creep’s catfishing scam. The gasoline and the match that lit him ablaze in the middle of nowhere. The feeling of having his soul wrench itself out of his body as he becomes a ghost. Becoming a ghost, and all the baggage that comes with that. 

And of course, he can’t forget the little detail that he’s somehow able to pass off for human if he tries hard enough. This will require further experimentation, if he’s to keep the sham up with any degree of reliability. 

But wouldn’t it be easier to tell people he’s dead? Then his killer could face justice, and he wouldn’t have to lie and hide. People might not believe him at first, but it would be easy enough to prove his ghostly status. 

It’d be easy, too. He could step out of the bathroom right now, as he can’t seem to change his current attire from the misty facsimile of his current getup. The rolled-up sleeves and black slacks look seems to be a part of his ghostly form. Which might complicate things, because Gwen will surely hound him about wearing the same thing every -

Stop rambling, Merlin.

He could step out of the bathroom and gather up Elyan and Gwen in the living room, telling them he’s got something important to confess. He could say he’s actually dead, that he was killed, and he could show off his ghost gimmicks so they’ll believe him. Gwen will get upset, and Elyan will hotly demand all the details about his killer so they can alert the authorities. Gwen will ask where his body is, so they can recover it and give him a proper burial. There will be lots of crying. Gwen won’t go to work, and Elyan will have to ask Leon to go to the car show without him. 

It’ll be sad for a while, but surely it won’t stay that way right? Because they haven’t truly lost him. He’s still here with them, still able to talk and laugh and watch movies. He just doesn’t have a pulse anymore. They’d still love him. 

They would. They _would_ love him. They wouldn’t care that he’s a hassle, or that he’s causing all these problems for them. They wouldn’t be afraid of him, or call him a freak, or scream in his face and run the other way, or exorcise him and hope this wretched, inhuman creature will finally cease to exist.

It would be so easy to do it. It’s just three words. “I’m a ghost.” 

And yet, why is it so hard?

He steps out of the shower, but doesn’t need to dry off. By now Gwen is applying her makeup in the hallway mirror, and Elyan is impatiently checking his watch as he sits on the couch. 

Just say it. Three words. “I’m a ghost.”

I’m a ghost.

I’m a ghost.

I’m a -

“My phone’s on the table,” Gwen says as she pins a pair of studded earrings into her ears. “You can use that to let Mithian know you won’t be in today.”

Merlin swallows. Where does his saliva go when he does that, if he doesn’t have any internal organs or muscles? 

“Y-yeah.” His arms tremor under the strain of tangibility. “Thanks.”

He searches through her contacts for Mithian McNemeth, who happens to be both Merlin’s boss and Gwen’s old college roommate. 

_Hi, Mithian! This is Merlin using Gwen’s_

_phone. Long story short by mine is_

_broken and I’m sick atm. Is it alright if I_

_take the day off?_

_Of course, take all the time you need._

_Hope you get better soon._

Merlin tries not to laugh at the irony of telling a ghost to get better soon. He fails. 

Elyan springs to his feet. “Ah! Leon’s here. See you both at dinner!” He rushes out the door before anyone can say goodbye.

Gwen is next to leave, mere minutes after her brother. She gives Merlin another hug. His tangibility acts up right in the middle of the embrace, causing her arms to slip through his chest a bit, but it’s so brief she doesn’t even notice. Thank god.

He shouldn’t be afraid of them. He shouldn’t be afraid of the truth.

At dinner he’ll tell them both what really happened. He promises himself this much. 

That gives him all day to get the hang of being dead, master this whole tangibility thing, and then gather up the courage to fess up at dinner.

It goes without saying that he’s about to fail on all three accounts.


	2. Ghost Karaoke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merlin figures out how to be tangible, does some research, and ghost-jacks a car.

_Search history_

_Today_

_10:36 AM_ _how to be a ghost - Google Search_

 _10:37 AM_ _how to be a ghost wikihow - Google Search_

 _10:38 AM_ _Types of Ghosts and Spirits - www.ghostsandgravestones.com_

 _10:40 AM_ _How to Become a Ghost - www.schloss-post.com_

 _10:45 AM_ _how to be human - Google Search_

 _10:45 AM_ _How to Be Human: 6 Steps (with Pictures) - www.wikihow.com_

 _10:46 AM_ _how do ghosts work - Google Search_

 _10:46 AM_ _How Ghosts Work - www.science.howstuffworks.com_

 _10:55 AM_ _What Do Ghosts Feel? - www.psychologicalscience.org_

 _11:01 AM_ _Psychology: The truth about the paranormal - www.bbc.com_

 _11:07 AM_ _How Ouijas boards work. (Hint: it’s not ghosts.) - www.vox.com_

 _11:08 AM_ _Do Einstein’s Laws Prove Ghosts Exist? - www.livescience.com_

 _11:20 AM_ _how to be alive - Google Search_

 _11:20 AM_ _how to stop being dead - Google Search_

 _11:21 AM_ _ghost rules - Google Search_

 _11:22 AM_ _g_ _host rules NOT vocaloid song - Google Search_

 _11:23 AM_ _hatsune miku - Google Search_

 _11:23 AM_ _why are vocaloid songs so edgy? - Google Search_

 _11:25 AM_ _danny phantom full episodes online free - Google Search_

 _11:27 AM_ _why am i dead - Google Search_

 _11:28 AM_ _why am i dead NOT video game - Google Search_

 _11:29 AM_ _are ghosts real? - Google Search_

 _11:29 AM_ _Are Ghosts Real? Evidence Has Not Materialized - www.livescience.com_

 _11:29 AM_ _The science of ghosts - www.sciencenewsforstudents.org_

 _11:31 AM_ _Unfinished Business - www.tvtropes.org_

 _11:37 AM_ _paranormal investigation - Google Search_

 _11:38 AM_ _Paranormal Investigations and Technology - www.cio.com_

 _11:45 AM_ _guide to being a ghost - Google Search_

 _11:45 AM_ _A Beginner’s Guide to Ghosts - thoughtcatalog.com_

* * *

The good news is, navigating a laptop has done wonders for helping him practice his ghostly dexterity. While he’s still rather shabby, he’s at least gotten the hang of switching back and forth between tangible and intangible. In a way, it almost feels like clenching and unclenching your buttcheeks - but instead of your buttcheeks, it’s your whole body. 

The bad news is, he’s wasted the last hour or so doing research that ended up largely fruitless. Most of the resources he found had something to do with ghost- _hunting_ , an idea that once filled him with amusement and now only fills him with dread. 

But look on the bright side. He may not understand how being dead works, but he’s got a whole afterlife ahead of him to figure it out.

All things considered, he’s not sure how bright that ‘bright side’ is.

Merlin sighs and rubs his eyes, allowing himself a moment of intangibility between Google searches. Did he expect an internet of living people to create useful, comprehensive tools for dead people? No. But he can’t help being the slightest bit disappointed. 

At this point in his search, he’s almost desperate enough to look at the second page of Google. Almost.

He types in another search query - _ghost instruction manual_ \- as he’s quite not ready to give up without answers yet. Is this how Gwen will find him when she comes home, floating half a foot above his chair and hunched over a laptop as he continues this exercise in futility? 

Or should he say... _exorcise_ in futility. You know. Because he’s a ghost now. And ghosts get _exorcised_. Yes, he knows how raucously hilarious he is. John Mulaney could never.

Hmm, Merlin should do standup. He tried it for a bit, back in college, and did half-decent. It’d at least be a fun way to spend the listless, infinite hours of his afterlife.

An unfortunate - and unexpected - side effect of being dead is all the ghost jokes now at his disposal that he can’t even use, as no one will understand them unless they know he’s dead. 

Such a bummer. Or rather, a _boo_ -mer. 

Okay, even Merlin will admit that was a bad pun.

A slight inkling occurs to him that perhaps senseless comedy isn’t the best or healthiest way to cope with dying horribly. But he shoves it aside. He’s pretty sure being dead precludes him from needing to worry about his health anymore, given he doesn’t need to eat or sleep or _breathe_ anymore.

He clicks ‘search’, and in a blink hundreds of thousands of results pop up. But he’s no longer intrigued by articles about how ghosts aren’t real or how to hunt the ones that are. It’s annoying and repetitive by now, and darn near hurtful. He _is_ real, thank you very much - or at least, he thinks he is. And Merlin doesn't have the energy to question his existence at the moment. 

Just as he’s about to snap the computer shut in frustration, a result catches his eye. It’s the fourth one to the bottom, which seldom means anything good when it comes to reliability. Anything past the first five results at the top tends to be the work of crackpots and tinfoil hat-wearing conspiracy nuts. He once saw a headline about how ghosts somehow proved the presence of aliens in Egypt, and if he wasn’t already dead then he probably would have had a stroke.

But the result. Right, the result. Fourth one to the bottom.

**Understanding the Dead and Their Spirits: A Comprehensive Manual [PDF]**

Merlin clicks the link, and a PDF opens up in a new tab. It’s a 245-page book by some guy named Doctor R. Gaius, written and published in 1981 but posted online in 2012. He doesn’t understand a lot of it - what the hell does ‘the post-mortem excitation of extra-corporeal particles’ mean, anyway? Well, all those academic types like to sound pretentious on purpose, and this Gaius guy is probably no different.

Just as Merlin considers noping out of the document and giving up on research altogether, he hits a block of text that actually makes some modicum of sense.

_Ygraine DuBois is a seven-year-old girl recovering from an life-threatening injury sustained in a home invasion. She claims that her wound has given her the ability to see these spirits. What she says in description of them matches with the research outlined before: intangible entities beyond human perception that can occasionally solidify their forms. Sometimes, they only have the strength to become partially tangible and move objects. Others are powerful enough to appear as visible apparitions. To her supposed knowledge, only one spirit - whom she calls ‘The Morrigan’ - can become tangible and visible at the same time. “She looks like a human,” DuBois said. “She’s not see-through anymore, but she looks like she’s alive again.”_

That’s exactly what he’s like! He ‘solidifies’ himself in order to touch things or be visible (with varying success). Does that make him as powerful as ‘the Morrigan’, whoever or whatever that is? One thing’s for certain, Ygraine DuBois probably has the answers.

Unfortunately, he can’t many other references to Ygraine in the book - or at least, references he can actually _understand._

He opens up a new tab and looks up ‘ygraine dubois’. No capitals, of course, because for all his newfound typing proficiency he can still only press one key at a time. 

The first headline pops up - Camelot City News. It’s a digital archive of something a newspaper article from 1990. 

**Wife of Uther Pendragon Dies In Childbirth**

Crap.

He reads the article, and it seems rather par for the course: Ygraine Pendragon née DuBois passed away when giving birth to her son Arthur. Uther Pendragon, her widower, is apparently the CEO of a major oil fracking company. Pendragon Drilling, it’s called, complete with a red-and-gold dragon logo that looks more like a medieval family crest. 

Wait, hang on. That name sounds familiar. _Arthur Pendragon_. He goes back up to his query bar and looks that name up instead, and all the results are a bunch of Youtube videos and Tweets and - and what the hell, he’s got a freaking Wikipedia article!

From what Merlin manages to gather, Arthur Pendragon is not only the son of an oil mogul but also a popular musician. He started out posting videos of himself adapting popular songs and singing them, and quickly rose to popularity. Never wrote his own lyrics, but apparently no one cares. Apparently it’s an honour just to have him _consider_ covering your work, as a cover of your song by Arthur Pendragon does wonders for promotion. 

Merlin clicks on a link to one of his Youtube videos - a rock cover of ‘Ashes The Rain And I’ by James Gang. And honestly? It’s _alright_. Not good, but alright. Good enough for Merlin to respect his craft, but not good enough to earn all this attention he’s getting. His rich dad paid for the publicity, no doubt. 

Oh look, he’s going on tour right now, the hack. Merlin rolls his eyes and closes the tab. 

Now wait just a minute! If Ygraine is dead, then that means there’s a possibility she became a ghost! And as a mother, she’s probably spending her afterlife following her son around. But that begs the question of where Arthur is on his tour, and if Merlin would even get the _chance_ to communicate with the spirit of a celebrity’s dead mother.

 _Or_ , he could just find another, more accessible ghost to talk to. Or he could talk to Dr. Gaius.

He should probably try his luck with other ghosts first. Who would understand the afterlife better than actual dead people?

Merlin rises up from his seat and shuts the laptop. Sunlight flits through the windows and blinds, dancing upon his ‘skin’ in a way that _should_ feel like heat but only leaves him cold and vacant. Like always. Like he’s felt since he first…

Merlin springs upward, intending to land on his feet but floating instead. He wavers and wobbles in the air a bit, but eventually manages to steady himself and lower his soles to the ground. 

It takes more effort than he’s willing to admit to keep himself on the ground. It’s a bit like swimming in a pool and your body naturally floats up to the top, but you try your very best to dive down and grab something that’s fallen to the bottom. Well, without the holding-your-breath bit. Merlin doesn’t exactly have a breath to hold.

Merlin’s never been good at diving, but he manages this whole gravity thing pretty alright. It’s more than a little odd that something he’s been reliant on his whole life is now something completely alien to him. Like, just yesterday walking on the ground would have been a simple, easy thing, and floating was the outlandish impossibility. Now? 

It’s a lot easier to stay on the ground once you’ve reached it, at least. Like riding a bike. 

Tangibility and visibility are a bit harder, which sucks because those factors are crucial in the pretending-to-be-alive scheme he’s cooked up. Well, he didn’t quite ‘cook it up’ so much as he just threw some random crap into the microwave and called it good. If that analogy makes any sense (it probably doesn’t).

First things first. He needs a plan. 

Merlin pulls out a pen and notepad from the counter and, after the pen falls out of his hand six times, shakily scrapes out shapes that might vaguely resemble letters. He pours his utmost concentration into tensing his fingers and keeping them tight against the pen, lest it fall out of his grip _again_ , but as a result his penmanship falters. 

_1 - find car_

_2 - find ghosts_

_3 - talk to gaius_

_4 - profit?_

By the time he’s written out something so small and inconsequential, his hand aches with an icy pain. He lets the pen phase through his palm and clatter onto the table, and he feels nothing but a faintly cold gust as it does. 

Everything is cold lately. Hopefully he’ll get used to it. He’ll _have_ to get used to it. 

Unless he can find some way to resuscitate his long-dead body. Can he do that? Can he go all Doctor Frankenstein and reanimate his own corpse? 

Can he possess a corpse? Can he possess _anything,_ for that matter? 

One thing at a time. Get the hang of tangibility and basic motor movements, _then_ worry about the advanced stuff.

* * *

Merlin and Will were scheduled to meet up at 7PM, at Broceliande Park. Merlin parked his car right at the curb on the east side of the park, and as it was too late for children to be playing outside he was the only one there. He said hi to the old lady who lived across the road - Mrs. Catha - and sat on the swingset on the north side of the park while he waited. It was somewhere on the west side that he’d been knocked out and kidnapped, roughly an hour later.

With any luck, his car should still be there. But there’s no guarantee Mrs. Catha won’t have reported his disappearance. If she saw him get kidnapped and reported it to the police, then that could complicate things. Then they’ll want to know what happened to him, and start looking into his life, and then they’ll find he literally doesn’t _have_ a life, and then -

But it’s unlikely she saw him get kidnapped. He was on the side of the park farthest from her house, and it was probably too dark outside for her to make out what happened. She might be confused about why he’d abandoned his car, but that could be explained away a lot more easily than getting shoved into some guy’s trunk.

To his dismay, the trip across town does not lead him to run into any other ghosts, or people like Ygraine who can _see_ ghosts. So either they’re all pretending to be human too - or he’s the only ghost.

But that can’t be right. He can’t be the _only_ ghost in existence. There have to be others out there, there have to be. It’s just a matter of finding them. 

Once he's certain no one is looking at him, he shifts into visibility. He doesn't _have_ to be visible, but it's good for practice. That and the idea of milling around large crowds of people who can't see him is slightly unnerving. 

There park is a lot busier than it was last night, which makes sense because this is usually the time when kids go out and play. Two women sit and chat on a bench as their children goof off not far away. With a flush of awkwardness he recognizes one of them to be his ex-girlfriend from sophomore year. 

It’s not that the two of them are on bad terms - on the contrary, he helped her plan her wedding - it’s just that this is _not_ the time to catch up with old friends. If he just turns back invisible...

“Oh, hi Merlin!” 

Dangit.

Emotionally prepping himself for prolonged interaction with a living person, Merlin pivots on his heels and twists his mouth into the best mimicry of a smile he can muster. “Oh hi there, Elena. Long time no see.”

Elena draws her arm away from her its position draped over her wife’s shoulders and jumps up to give him an animated hug. “It’s so good to see you!” 

Don’t go intangible, don’t go intangible, don’t go intangible, don’t -

“Goodness, Merlin,” she cries with a gasp, and lets him go. “You’re cold as the dead!”

Merlin snorts. “I certainly feel like it. How’ve you been, Elena?”

“All the better now I’ve seen you again.” She pulls a curly lock of blonde behind her ear. Vivian, who’s still sitting on the bench, gives him a small half-wave. “Little Sefa is growing up fast - too fast, I think. Makes me feel old.”

On the middlemost swing is a girl with brown hair pulled into pigtails and what looks like one of Vivian’s designer outfits but miniaturized. She stares glumly at her shiny shoes, kicking her feet as she swings back and forth. 

Noticing Merlin’s concerned gaze, Elena hushly confides, “She’s not been making many friends at school.”

“Well Mordred’s nearly her age, maybe they might get along.”

“You hate Mordred!”

“I don’t _hate_ Mordred, I just find him a bit...unsettling. And besides, my feelings about my cousin are a non-sequitur if he can give Sefa some much-needed company.”

A laugh. Elena’s laughs are always loud and boisterous, and this time is no different. “Non-sequitur, huh? Have you been reading Gwen’s stories or something?”

Merlin laughs as well. “Crossword, actually.” Another laugh passes between them, and maybe this is his chance to say his farewells and run off. 

“How’s Freya doing?”

Or not. Maybe this isn’t his chance to leave, maybe this is the part where Elena asks the worst question possible.

For the sake of levity, he tries to keep his tone light. “She broke up with me.” 

(He fails to keep his tone light.)

“No way, you two were so devoted to each other! What happened?”

“It’s - complicated.” Good answer. Emotional-ness is a great way to end smalltalk, _and_ it’s true. His break-up with Freya _is_ complicated. Well, more complicated than a casual parkside conversation could allow for, anyway.

He seizes the opportunity. “Well, it’s been nice seeing you again. But I really must be off. Seeya around!”

“O-oh! Right then. You too, Merlin. Take care, okay?”

With a jaunty two-fingered salute, aiming to act as ‘Merlin-esque’ as possible, he dashes away. 

Much to his immense relief, his car is fine. It’s the same cheap, puttery SUV it’s always been with the same spider crack on the windshield he keeps forgetting fix. His mother had given it to him as a going-away present right before he set off for college. _“So you’ll have no excuse not to visit me,”_ she’d explained with a wry grin.

It’s parked in the same spot, it’s in good condition, and it doesn’t look like anyone’s tried jacking it lately. And there are certainly no police crawling all over it in search of clues about the kidnapping victim’s whereabouts. Good. That means Mrs. Catha didn’t say anything. He can’t help wondering why, though. But never mind that. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

He fishes his pocket for ke-

Oh.

Oh no.

_Oh hell no._

These aren’t his pants. These are just the spectral, misty _imitation_ of his pants. His real pants are currently charred to dust and buried in the woods with the rest of him, and his keys are probably there too. 

Well balls on a stick, this is bad.

Yes, technically he could just walk through the car door. But how would he _start_ the car? He doesn’t know how to jack a car! And sure, ghosts manipulate tech to do weird stuff in movies all the time, but he has been a ghost for less than 24 hours. He hasn’t exactly had the time to master all things supernatural. 

For a moment he considers going out to find his corpse and get his keys back, but they probably melted in the fire. If he remembers right, gasoline burns at around 1700 Fahrenheit, and things like brass/nickel - what keys are made of - have a marginally lower melting temperature. And that’s not to speak of his wallet. His credit cards are certainly melted beyond repair. He’ll have to call the bank about that.

Oh, that’s two more things to put on his to-do list: get a new phone and call the bank to get some replacement cards.

It’s...dissociating, to think about the temperature at which he died. Over a thousand degrees. His body burnt up, and his skin split open to the point that bodily fluids leaked out, and his organs boiled and decomposed inside his blackening flesh, and -

Merlin shakes the memory away. He can think about whether or not he’s traumatized _after_ he deals with the car situation. Or maybe he can think about his possible PTSD _never_ , and just carry on pretending it never happened. That’s a good plan.

“Well Merlin,” he says to himself, hands on his hips. “Looks like you’ll be trying out the advanced stuff after all.”

With an unnecessary sigh, Merlin loosens his apparition and allows himself to fall through the car door - which is an odd sensation, to be sure. A block of cold ushers through his chest and then out his backside, and when he opens his eyes again he’s hovering above the seat of his car.

“Hmm, if I was a malicious spirit who wanted to possess a car, how would I go about it?” The car doesn’t respond, nor do any answers spill forth from the depths of his dead brain. “How about…”

Merlin reaches his hands forward into the dashboard and spreads his apparition even thinner than it naturally is, to the point that even he can no longer tell where his fingers are anymore or if he even _has_ fingers. It’s as though his hands have unraveled into a shallow blanket of mist gradually coating over the car’s inner gears and mechanisms. The sensation sends a chill down his ghostly spine, making him even colder than he already was.

“O...kay…” He glances around to make sure no one’s giving him a funny look. Seeing someone shove their hands straight through a dashboard would undoubtedly be a horrifying sight. It’s a horrifying sight for him and _he’s_ the one doing it.

“Turn...on?”

And the car comes to life. Lights flicker on - he needs to get an oil change, apparently - and the engine roars into ignition. He yelps in surprise and almost draws his hands back, but stops himself at the last minute.

This is good. This is very good. Horrifying that he’s able to do this, but good.

 _“- alright cuz I’m with friends,”_ the radio sings. A pumpy, electric beat fills the car. _“Cuz I’m giving up again, it doesn’t matter. And I’m feeling like a ghost, and it’s what I hate the m-”_

Just as Merlin is about to tell his his car to change the channel, it does just that. 

_“- just feel the need to be getting a little of you, a lot of bloodletting. I know the sensation you’re probably dreading, but cutting you up -”_

Change.

_“- we’re witnessing the waking of the dead -”_

Change. For the love of god, change the channel.

_“Things we lost in the flames, things we'll never see -”_

“Okay!” Merlin cries out. The radio cuts out at his whim. “That’s enough music for today, I think. I can just sit here in total silence. That’s fine too.”

And so he does.

A moment passes.

Two moments.

Once he’s reclaimed some semblance of control over his emotions, Merlin takes another needless breath and says, “Alright, car. Pull into the right-most lane over there.”

Just as he envisions the car’s actions to carry out in his mind, the car does so in real life. The next thing he knows he’s in the correct lane, facing the correct way.

“Ha ha! I did it!” Merlin is admittedly a bit bummed he’ll never be able to share this discovery with anyone - you can’t exactly Tweet about the fact you’ve learned how to drive using the power of your _soul_ \- but honestly he doesn’t care. “This is almost easier than real dri-”

His momentary loss of concentration causes the car to drift. It hits Mrs. Catha’s mailbox.

...This is going to be a long day.

* * *

Forty curbs, seven mailboxes, and one Walmart shopping cart later, Merlin fumbles his way through the door of his home. He doesn’t even bother with maintaining and apparition in case Gwen and Elyan are home. Possession - or whatever he just did to the car - took a _lot_ out of him, and if he had the choice then he would hibernate until the next election cycle.

He had _planned_ to use the car to help speed up the process of finding other ghosts, and maybe even drive out to find Dr. Gaius if push came to shove. But after that? He’ll have better luck with public transit.

That’s it. From now on, he’s flying everywhere. As the natural state of ghosts is to float and hover and fly, it takes the least amount of energy out of him. He’s never walking again or _driving_ ever again, if he can help it. 

There is one thing he managed to gain from this experience, though: there aren’t any other ghosts in all of Ealdor. None he could find, anyway. But _why_?

One option is that ghosts are really, really rare. Another is that this town is home to a family of ghost hunters or exorcists or something, which means it’s only a matter of time before they come after him next. A third option is that just as ghosts aren’t visible to humans, they aren’t visible to each other either. A fourth option is that ghosts don’t exist and Merlin has been hallucinating this whole time. Maybe smoke inhalation caused some kind of brain damage, and none of this is actually real.

He’s not sure which of those possibilities he prefers. They’re all equally bad, aside from maybe the first one. But whatever the case, it only means that Merlin is alone in his endeavors to understand his recent loss of mortality. 

The front door opens behind him. “I’m home!” cries Gwen.

Oh crap. 

Knowing she’ll worry if he’s not home, he rounds into the bathroom, tenses his body into a visible apparition, then walks out. Keeping his feet on the ground is harder than it should be, but he blames it on his tiredness.

“How are you, Merlin?” she asks him, fondness swelling in her eyes at the sight of him. “Feeling any better?”

Merlin gives her the best smile he has energy for. “Just peachy. How was work?”

He mentally slaps himself. Why oh _why_ is he initiating smalltalk when he should be turning around and going to freaking _sleep_?

“Ah, you know how it is.” And Gwen goes on to ramble on about this, that, and the other about her workday, and Merlin stands and nods. He tries his best to listen intently, because it’s always nice to see her get passionate about things, but in full honesty he just wants to go to bed.

She holds up a grocery bag. “I got you soup! It’s your favourite, too.” She puts a cans on the counter.

“Ooh, Chicken And Stars,” he cooes wearily but excitedly. “Thanks, Gwen.”

He’s always loved Chicken And Stars, ever since he was a little kid. It was his mother’s go-to for whenever Merlin stayed home sick, and it was the first food he learned how to cook. It’s childish and simple, but it’s the comfort - the nostalgia - that lures him in. That warms his heart and…

He won’t be able to eat the soup. He won’t be able to eat anything, really. Because he’s dead, and a ghost, and ghosts can’t eat. 

He won’t even be able to _taste_ the soup.

He can’t eat the soup.

_He can’t eat the soup._

“Merlin, are you alright?”

Why would she ask - oh. It’s because he’s crying. 

Crying over soup. Like an idiot. Because he can’t eat it.

Why is this bothering him so much? It’s just soup. Soup he can’t eat. Because he’s a ghost. And ghosts are dead, and he’s dead because some sicko tied him up and did horrible things to his body and poured gasoline all over his skin and it smelled so bad and then there was fire and he died tasting his own burning flesh and it was so _hot_ -

He wipes his spectral tears. The tears vanish into nothing the moment they leave his person, and for a moment he questions where they’ve gone. Perhaps where _he’ll_ go, if he ever passes on.

Oh god. Passing on. That’s a thing he has to think and worry about. Because he’s dead.

He can’t eat the freaking soup.

“Merlin?” She approaches him, ready to pull him into another hug. But he isn’t really in the mood to make himself tangible again, so he just waves her off and backs away. This only serves to worry her further. Merlin Emrys never backs away from a hug, and certainly not a hug from _Gwen_.

“I’m just - tired,” he says, and the bone-deep weariness in his voice is no act. “I think I’ll just...close my eyes for a while.”

Her face is somber and her voice is slightly hurt when she says, “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

He could. And he wants to.

But what would he say? ‘Sorry Gwen, I got kidnapped by my date and set on fire, and now my corpse is lying out in the woods, you wanna take a peek?’ Sure. That’ll go over well.

She’s already lost both her parents. He can’t be another loss for her to grieve. He can’t weigh her already heavy heart with his own problems. He’s already troubled her with all his drama in the past, and now she’s _bought him soup_ , and he can’t bring himself to put more stress on her. Gwen deserves happiness. She deserves to be happy.

He can’t even eat the soup.

“Of course!” he says in false cheeriness. “I always tell you everything, don’t I?”

But Gwen says nothing as she watches him retreat into his room. He tries not to let that bother him. It takes his whole attention just opening and closing the door, he can’t afford to concern himself with Gwen’s worriedness.

His spectral form wavers and quivers, unsteady along the edges like the fuzzy lines of a child’s crude drawing. A cacophony of ice and harsh numbness pounds against his senses, threatening to beat his sanity into submission, threatening to crush him into a tiny little corner until he can no longer comprehend anything beyond pure exhaustion.

He needs a nap. Can ghosts nap? God, he sure hopes so. This will be a rather horrible afterlife if he can’t.

Merlin floats up to his bed and flops onto it - then flops _through_ it.

“Oh, come on!”

* * *

A man sits in a cushioned chair at a quaint little coffee shop. He has a computer on his lap, which is opened up to the pastel-coloured homepage of a dating website. He has sleek black hair and a black vest, and he looks between his late forties and early fifties.

“Sorry I’m late, uncle,” says a voice. It comes from a tall, muscular blonde with quick blue eyes and deft fingers. He has a red leather jacket tossed over his shoulder and a motorcycle helmet tucked under his arm. “Although I’ll admit, I was rather surprised you wanted to meet.”

The man smiles up at his nephew. “You’re hardly late at all, Arthur. Now come, sit. It’s been a while since I last saw you, and I’d quite like to catch up.”

The nephew - the one and only Arthur Pendragon, as it so happens - sits down in the chair opposite his uncle’s and sets his red helmet on a nearby coffee table. The two begin to talk and chat about old times and new, but the uncle’s thoughts are elsewhere. Every so often his eyes draw back to his computer screen.

“Agravaine?” asks Arthur, when he notices his uncle has gone quiet for a bit. “Did you hear what I said?”

The uncle - Agravaine DuBois - smiles and shakes his head. “Sorry, Arthur. Could you repeat it? My mind’s a bit foggy right now. I had a...busy night.”

Arthur takes no issues in repeating himself, and launches into yet another narrative about a piece of fan mail he received recently.

But again, Agravaine’s mind is drawn back to his computer screen.

His computer screen, which reads:

WOULD YOU LIKE TO DELETE YOUR ACCOUNT, Will Waterson?

YES NO

Agravaine clicks yes, then goes up into the corner of the page and clicks ‘CREATE NEW ACCOUNT’.

Perhaps he’ll go by 'Drew Daegal' this time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who commented on chapter 1! Your kind words mean a lot to me. I'm definitely continuing this fic, and I hope this will be a fun journey ahead for all of us :) 
> 
> Hopefully I'll have more time to be producing and posting in the future, because one of my schools is switching to 'distance' learning due to coronavirus concerns - and because spring break is next week! Lmao, what a time to live in WA state. Stay safe out there, friendos <3

**Author's Note:**

> I know this isn't one of my main wips, but it's been pestering me for a week now. I've got the basic overall plot detailed out too, because I have no control over my life (when I *should* be working on my midterm lmao). Anyone want me to continue this? Let me know!


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